This is a dedicated post for independent expenditures in the 8th CD race between Steve Kagen and John Gard. There's a bit of analysis you might find interesting in an older post I did on this race, although the numbers in that post are out of date.
Last updated 11/2/06. With well over two million dollars of independent expenditures in this race it's no longer practical for me to list them individually, so I'm now only posting totals for each group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Independent expenditures in favor of Steve Kagen:
$1,101,990 DCCC
$195,601 AFSME
$54,512 SEIU
------------
$1,352,103 TOTAL
Independent expenditures in favor of John Gard:
$1,078,003 NRCC
$69,000 Republican Party of WI
$40,654 National Right to Life PAC
$11,540 Trust in Small Business PAC
$6,024 Club for Growth
------------
$1,205,221 TOTAL
Saturday, October 14, 2006
DPW Chair Joe Wineke at the Dane Dems
Last Wednesday Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairperson Joe Wineke spoke about the upcoming elections at the Democratic Party of Dane County's monthly meeting. I recorded his speech, and the Q&A session afterwards, and I've posted the mp3 files on the Democracy for Wisconsin server for your listening pleasure.
Each segment is about fifteen minutes long. The recordings are quite good, although it's a little hard to hear the questions during the Q&A because I didn't have a microphone for the audience.
-------------------------------------
Joe always gives a good speech, and certainly did so on Wednesday. I'm not going to review the majority of what he said because I agreed with most of it, and you can listen for yourself. My comments are on the things I take issue with. Although they may come across as a bit negative, overall I both enjoyed and appreciated Joe's visit.
Each segment is about fifteen minutes long. The recordings are quite good, although it's a little hard to hear the questions during the Q&A because I didn't have a microphone for the audience.
-------------------------------------
Joe always gives a good speech, and certainly did so on Wednesday. I'm not going to review the majority of what he said because I agreed with most of it, and you can listen for yourself. My comments are on the things I take issue with. Although they may come across as a bit negative, overall I both enjoyed and appreciated Joe's visit.
I have some concerns about Joe's analysis of the Senate and Assembly races. He really emphasized the national Democratic generic ballot advantage while downplaying head-to-head polling numbers. This starts at about 4:35 in the speech. I understand that he's trying to pump up the troops, but this particular audience is probably the most informed and active in the state, and Joe just came across as rather pollyannaish. We're going to have a very good election year, and Joe certainly deserves to pat himself on the back for that, but I worry that in doing so he may be giving the impression that we can afford to sit back and relax between now and the election. That would be a huge mistake.
Unfortunately Joe also turned a good chance to unify the audience behind Doyle and Falk into a slightly mean-spirited lecture. This starts at about 13:50 in his speech. Joe's "suck it up" comment was probably not a wise choice of words for a group that overwhelmingly supported Peg Lautenschlager, and knows far more than they should about Doyle's peccadilloes. Quite a few people were pissed about that, and Joe's comments certainly didn't help either Doyle or Falk.
But my biggest concern is what Joe had to say when he was asked how we can preserve the grassroots ground infrastructure that we're building for this election so that it doesn't have to be completely rebuilt in two years. You can hear it on the Q&A tape starting at about 5:45, with the questioner restating it at 8:10 because Joe didn't really answer it the first time.
After being asked the second time, Joe implied that ground infrastructure should be built by candidates, not the Party, and then said it isn't the Party's job to maintain the infrastructure, and that individual Party members should do it by themselves. "Why is it the Party's responsibility, why isn't it the people's responsibility to do some of these things?"
This is one of my biggest frustrations with the Party. I did a huge amount of ground organizing for the '04 presidential campaign, first for Dean and then for Kerry, and I watched it all fall apart the day after the election. The volunteer lists and the data we needed for running the ward organizations just disappeared. What little we were able to preserve or recover, some of it from raiding campaign office trash cans when they packed up and left, wasn't enough to use effectively.
To be fair, this isn't just an issue with the Party. In '04 I also worked with the League of Conservation Voters and MoveOn, and the same things happened with them. National organizations, whether it's a campaign or an interest group, just don't give a damn about your grassroots ground organization once it's served their purpose. And, at least around here, candidates usually have little interest in using their hard-earned infrastructure to help other candidates or the Democratic Party as a whole.
My final comment is about the future direction of the Party. To me the most profound thing Joe said was "I used to be part of a big [Democratic] majority, and we lost it because we forgot about values and issues." This couldn't be more true. So what are we doing about it?
I believe that the reason we are not a party of values and issues is because we're a party of elected officials.
Think about that for a minute.
Who controls the Democratic Party?
More often than not, it's elected officials. Often through proxies, as with Joe, but elected officials nonetheless. And the last thing a Democratic elected official wants is to have the Party publicly disagreeing with him. If they can't control what the Party says, they would rather it says nothing at all. No values, no issues, no nothing. As a county party official, I can tell you that the pressure from electeds on the Party to avoid taking public stands is nearly constant.
We can either be a party of values working for the good of all Democrats, or a party of individuals working for their own good, but not both. This is our most fundamental problem, and until we deal with it we can never build a truly strong and successful Democratic Party.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Why diplomacy really is important...
This is the best article I've found yet on the history of the North Korean nuclear issue. It's a bit dated, but still is exactly what you need to understand what's going on, and to give you the ammo you need to debate your wingnut friends (who will continue blaming Clinton for every Republican screwup until the day they die.)
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Is it Fascism Yet?
(Click on the image to get a larger version suitable for downloading and printing)
I've had many requests for this image. I can't take credit for it, and I don't know where it originated. There are several versions floating around the web, but they're very low resolution and not suitable for printing. So I resampled the image to increase the resolution, removed the background, fixed a few other things, and replaced the text. It now looks pretty good printed at 8-1/2 x 11.
If anybody knows who the artist is, please let me know.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Iran - The October Surprise? - Update
In a previous post I speculated that Bush may be planning a blockade of Iran timed for just before the elections. I don't think voters would buy into a outright attack so close to November, but Bush needs something to pull his butt out of the fire, and Rove has been hinting they're planning something big.
But there's another possibility, a terrible apocalyptic possibility, yet one that would give Bush exactly what he wants...
From today's Washington Times:
A former Navy intelligence officer weighs in on how the world will stop Iran from building nuclear bombs: "I really believe the Israelis are going to strike [Iran's] several uranium processing factories soon. They cannot survive a first strike. This time, unlike when they sent eight F-16s to destroy the Iraqi reactor Osirak, I think they will use the Jericho missiles and the submarine-launched, nuclear-tipped Tomahawks to do nuclear strikes. Most of the factories are 150 meters underground and too deep for bunker busters." (Emphasis mine)
And The Nation has confirmed that we're moving significant military assets into the Persian Gulf:
As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1.The result of a massive Israeli nuclear attack on Iran could be millions of civilian casualties, and one of the worst political and humanitarian crisis in world history. But it certainly would eliminate the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. Bush wouldn't be blamed for the mess, and it would just about guarantee Republican control of the House and Senate in November.[...]
Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is "very important evidence" of war planning. He says, "I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date" of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise." This point was also made in the Time article.
A true win-win situation for the Bush administration.
Picking on Foley - The Downside
While I like to pile on as much as anybody when The Party of Moral ValuesTM gets caught with their collective pants down, there's a potential downside for Democrats and progressives in this sordid affair.
It's all too easy for an opposition party to simply wait for the party in power to self-destruct rather than develop the message, agenda, and electoral infrastructure to win on their own merits. And while power corrupts, and Republicans, due to their free market and anti-regulatory agenda, are particularly susceptible to corruption, counting on them to screw up in order to beat them is not a viable long-term political strategy.
Winning is what counts in politics, and success, whether earned or not, is the criteria by which tactics, strategy, and politicians are judged. Should we win big nationally in this election, as it now appears, much of that success will not be due to our own efforts, but to the incompetence of Republicans. Yet within the Democratic Party that fact will be quickly forgotten in a rush to claim the credit and spoils that accrue to the victors.
The danger, of course, is that we won't use our gains to do the hard work of self-examination necessary to ensure that our success continues in the future. "Vote for me because I'm not as bad as the guy you elected last time" is a knife that cuts both ways.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
WI 8th CD Race - Attack Ads Fly
UPDATED 10/11/06
Both the DCCC and the NRCC continue to pour money into this race. No sign anything has changed yet. A couple of smaller PAC's have jumped in to support Gard, but their spending is dwarfed by that of the Campaign Committees. Total outside spending is now over a million dollars, and continuing to increase at a rate of about two hundred thousand dollars a week.
------------
Lots of outside money is flowing into the 8th Congressional District race between Steve Kagen and John Gard, almost all of it for attack ads. Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) have been pumping dollars into this race. Each has spent well over a quarter million so far this month, with over 95% of that on both sides for negative ads.
Here are the details, as pulled from PoliticalMoneyLine:
DCCC
10/6/2006 - $9,750 for production of ads against Gard
10/3/2006 - $88,047 for ads against Gard
9/29/2006 - $9,151 for production of ads against Gard
9/26/2006 - $67,604 for ads against Gard
9/26/2006 - $18,516 for ads in support of Kagen
9/21/2006 - $5800 for production of ads in support of Kagen
9/21/2006 - $5800 for production of ads against Gard
9/20/2006 - $84,107 for ads against Gard
9/12/2006 - $82,065 for ads against Gard
9/12/2006 - $8,900 for production of ads against Gard
9/5/2006 - $80,907 for ads against Gard
9/5/2006 - $8,200 for production of ads against Gard
------------
Totals: $24,316 for positive ads, $444,531 for attack ads
NRCC
10/10/2006 - $4,411 for phone calls against Kagen
10/9/2006 - $4,818 for phone calls against Kagen
10/6/2006 - $83,985 for ads against Kagen
10/4/2006 - $8,235 for survey
9/29/2006 - $89,278 for ads against Kagen
9/28/2006 - $7,560 for production of ads against Kagen
9/22/2006 - $84,210 for ads against Kagen
9/20/2006 - $11,417 for survey
9/15/2006 - $89,130 for ads against Kagen
9/14/2006 - $7,448 for production of ads against Kagen
9/8/2006 - $78,766 for ads against Kagen
9/5/2006 - $75,987 for ads against Kagen
9/1/2006 - $7,192 for production of ads against Kagen
9/1/2006 - $813 for production of ads against Kagen
------------
Totals: $19,652 for surveys, $533,598 for attack ads
National Right to Life PAC
10/10/2006 - $5,239 for mailing flyers in support of Gard
10/6/2006 - $12,049 for printing flyers in support of Gard
------------
Total: $17,288 for ads in support of Gard
Trust in Small Business PAC
9/25/2006 - $6,930 for cable ads in support of Gard
9/25/2006 - $4,610 for production of ads in support of Gard
------------
Total: $11,540 for ads in support of Gard
A couple of interesting things here. First of all, the fact that both Congressional Committees are involved shows that they believe this is a competitive race that could go either way. And it's pretty typical for them to run lots of attack ads. Part of the reason for this is that outside groups can't coordinate their efforts with campaigns, so it often makes more sense for them to just attack the other guy rather than to risk messing up their own candidate's message discipline by running ads in his favor. I'm not trying to justify this, just explain it.
The NRCC just did a survey in this race, and this is a national pattern. They've spent a lot of money this cycle on surveys and on mailings, while the DCCC is concentrating on TV ads. Since the Republicans are usually ahead of us and do a better job in terms of the mechanics of campaigns, there's probably a lesson to be learned here.
Both the DCCC and the NRCC continue to pour money into this race. No sign anything has changed yet. A couple of smaller PAC's have jumped in to support Gard, but their spending is dwarfed by that of the Campaign Committees. Total outside spending is now over a million dollars, and continuing to increase at a rate of about two hundred thousand dollars a week.
------------
Lots of outside money is flowing into the 8th Congressional District race between Steve Kagen and John Gard, almost all of it for attack ads. Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) have been pumping dollars into this race. Each has spent well over a quarter million so far this month, with over 95% of that on both sides for negative ads.
Here are the details, as pulled from PoliticalMoneyLine:
DCCC
10/6/2006 - $9,750 for production of ads against Gard
10/3/2006 - $88,047 for ads against Gard
9/29/2006 - $9,151 for production of ads against Gard
9/26/2006 - $67,604 for ads against Gard
9/26/2006 - $18,516 for ads in support of Kagen
9/21/2006 - $5800 for production of ads in support of Kagen
9/21/2006 - $5800 for production of ads against Gard
9/20/2006 - $84,107 for ads against Gard
9/12/2006 - $82,065 for ads against Gard
9/12/2006 - $8,900 for production of ads against Gard
9/5/2006 - $80,907 for ads against Gard
9/5/2006 - $8,200 for production of ads against Gard
------------
Totals: $24,316 for positive ads, $444,531 for attack ads
NRCC
10/10/2006 - $4,411 for phone calls against Kagen
10/9/2006 - $4,818 for phone calls against Kagen
10/6/2006 - $83,985 for ads against Kagen
10/4/2006 - $8,235 for survey
9/29/2006 - $89,278 for ads against Kagen
9/28/2006 - $7,560 for production of ads against Kagen
9/22/2006 - $84,210 for ads against Kagen
9/20/2006 - $11,417 for survey
9/15/2006 - $89,130 for ads against Kagen
9/14/2006 - $7,448 for production of ads against Kagen
9/8/2006 - $78,766 for ads against Kagen
9/5/2006 - $75,987 for ads against Kagen
9/1/2006 - $7,192 for production of ads against Kagen
9/1/2006 - $813 for production of ads against Kagen
------------
Totals: $19,652 for surveys, $533,598 for attack ads
National Right to Life PAC
10/10/2006 - $5,239 for mailing flyers in support of Gard
10/6/2006 - $12,049 for printing flyers in support of Gard
------------
Total: $17,288 for ads in support of Gard
Trust in Small Business PAC
9/25/2006 - $6,930 for cable ads in support of Gard
9/25/2006 - $4,610 for production of ads in support of Gard
------------
Total: $11,540 for ads in support of Gard
A couple of interesting things here. First of all, the fact that both Congressional Committees are involved shows that they believe this is a competitive race that could go either way. And it's pretty typical for them to run lots of attack ads. Part of the reason for this is that outside groups can't coordinate their efforts with campaigns, so it often makes more sense for them to just attack the other guy rather than to risk messing up their own candidate's message discipline by running ads in his favor. I'm not trying to justify this, just explain it.
The NRCC just did a survey in this race, and this is a national pattern. They've spent a lot of money this cycle on surveys and on mailings, while the DCCC is concentrating on TV ads. Since the Republicans are usually ahead of us and do a better job in terms of the mechanics of campaigns, there's probably a lesson to be learned here.
It looks like the DCCC is planning to run another round of ads in the near future because they just paid to produce a couple of new ones. No response yet by the NRCC, although if their polling shows that Gard is still in the running they will probably do the same in the next couple of days.
DISCLAIMER: I want to get this out of the way now, and I won't mention it again. I've met and talked to Steve Kagen, and in my opinion he's an arrogant jerk. I'm not at all convinced he's anything close to being a progressive, and I think a lot of good Democrats in the 8th CD are in for a rude awakening.
But he won the primary, and he is our candidate, and I, being a generally rational person, would much rather see him in that seat than John Gard.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Iran - The October Surprise?
Assume you're George Bush. You're the most powerful man in the world, and infallible (well, almost) 'cause God tells you what to do. But you've got a serious problem. Two of them actually...
Elections are coming, and things don't look good for the home team. Those pesky Democrats might take control of the House, and maybe even the Senate. Which wouldn't matter all that much, since you'd still be The Decider, except you played kinda fast and lose with the rules to get what you wanted. And if the Dems win they'll have subpoena power, and they'll dig through all your dirty laundry. Which wouldn't exactly be good for the old legacy.
The other thing is those damn Iranians. You kicked Saddam's ass, but your popularity just keeps falling because of the Iraq war, while the Iranians are taking home the bacon. They effectively control half of Iraq through their Shi'a party patrons. They're making nukes (thank God for stovepiped intelligence!). And they strut and threaten the US and Israel because they think you've got so many troops tied up in Iraq that you can't do anything about them.
Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to get rid of both those problems at once? Kill two birds with one stone?
Now, how could you possibly do that?
What about a massive air attack on Iran a couple of weeks before the elections? Hit 'em with everything we've got. Blow 'em back to the friggin' stone age. Americans love displays of firepower! Shock and awe! Wave the flag! And say that anybody who opposes the attack is a terrorist-lovin' liberal traitor, and that only Republicans can protect America from all those scary Iranian nuclear warheads.
You know, the nuclear warheads they don't really have, and probably won't have a for at least a decade, or two. But those are details, and you're a big picture guy. More importantly, so is the American public. It'll take them months to figure out the've been used, but by then it'll be too damn late...
---------------
Not very likely, right?
I don't know. But there are clues.
It looks like the efforts to corral the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese to agree to sanctions aren't exactly going very well (insert snide remark about herding cats here), so the administration is trying to pressure Iran in other ways.
One tactic is to cut Iran off from the international banking system, which would force Iran to sell oil through middlemen and make it difficult, and more expensive, for Iran to purchase imports. We're also busy grossly exaggerating Iran's nuclear capabilities to make them seem a lot scarier than they actually are. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), not exactly known for boldly sticking their necks out, actually called part of the most recent Bush administration report on Iran's nuclear efforts "outrageous and dishonest".
And it looks like we're well into the advanced stages of planning an attack on Iran, and may have started to move the necessary military assets into the Persian Gulf.
Now, all of these steps are arguably both reasonable and prudent if Bush is serious about finding a diplomatic solution to this issue. But given that we saw a very similar pattern before we invaded Iraq, we must ask if the diplomatic effort is just a sham, and if the President has already made up his mind to attack Iran, given the potential domestic political benefits.
The only way to tell that is to look for political hints, and to watch for military preparations that would indicate such an attack is imminent. In both these areas there's evidence that worries me. According to the conservative website Newsmax, Carl Rove is promising Republicans that there will be an October surprise to help them win the November elections. And on the military side it looks like we may be moving minehunters and minesweepers into the Persian Gulf.
But there's another possibility. Bush may put a partial or complete military blockade around Iran. Of course the Iranians would be kind of pissed, and it's likely this would eventually lead to outright conflict. But this plan could explain both Rove's comments and the ship movements (they would be needed to mine Iranian harbors), and would have some significant political and tactical advantages. It puts off the necessity of an outright attack, and the risk of being seen to do it for political reasons, until after the elections. It can be achieved with relatively limited military assets, many of which are already in the Persian Gulf. And it would virtually guarantee that Iran would be sufficiently provoked to provide the casus belli Bush needs to justify a war down the road, if he wants one.
Keep your eyes open...
Elections are coming, and things don't look good for the home team. Those pesky Democrats might take control of the House, and maybe even the Senate. Which wouldn't matter all that much, since you'd still be The Decider, except you played kinda fast and lose with the rules to get what you wanted. And if the Dems win they'll have subpoena power, and they'll dig through all your dirty laundry. Which wouldn't exactly be good for the old legacy.
The other thing is those damn Iranians. You kicked Saddam's ass, but your popularity just keeps falling because of the Iraq war, while the Iranians are taking home the bacon. They effectively control half of Iraq through their Shi'a party patrons. They're making nukes (thank God for stovepiped intelligence!). And they strut and threaten the US and Israel because they think you've got so many troops tied up in Iraq that you can't do anything about them.
Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to get rid of both those problems at once? Kill two birds with one stone?
Now, how could you possibly do that?
What about a massive air attack on Iran a couple of weeks before the elections? Hit 'em with everything we've got. Blow 'em back to the friggin' stone age. Americans love displays of firepower! Shock and awe! Wave the flag! And say that anybody who opposes the attack is a terrorist-lovin' liberal traitor, and that only Republicans can protect America from all those scary Iranian nuclear warheads.
You know, the nuclear warheads they don't really have, and probably won't have a for at least a decade, or two. But those are details, and you're a big picture guy. More importantly, so is the American public. It'll take them months to figure out the've been used, but by then it'll be too damn late...
---------------
Not very likely, right?
I don't know. But there are clues.
It looks like the efforts to corral the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese to agree to sanctions aren't exactly going very well (insert snide remark about herding cats here), so the administration is trying to pressure Iran in other ways.
One tactic is to cut Iran off from the international banking system, which would force Iran to sell oil through middlemen and make it difficult, and more expensive, for Iran to purchase imports. We're also busy grossly exaggerating Iran's nuclear capabilities to make them seem a lot scarier than they actually are. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), not exactly known for boldly sticking their necks out, actually called part of the most recent Bush administration report on Iran's nuclear efforts "outrageous and dishonest".
And it looks like we're well into the advanced stages of planning an attack on Iran, and may have started to move the necessary military assets into the Persian Gulf.
Now, all of these steps are arguably both reasonable and prudent if Bush is serious about finding a diplomatic solution to this issue. But given that we saw a very similar pattern before we invaded Iraq, we must ask if the diplomatic effort is just a sham, and if the President has already made up his mind to attack Iran, given the potential domestic political benefits.
The only way to tell that is to look for political hints, and to watch for military preparations that would indicate such an attack is imminent. In both these areas there's evidence that worries me. According to the conservative website Newsmax, Carl Rove is promising Republicans that there will be an October surprise to help them win the November elections. And on the military side it looks like we may be moving minehunters and minesweepers into the Persian Gulf.
But there's another possibility. Bush may put a partial or complete military blockade around Iran. Of course the Iranians would be kind of pissed, and it's likely this would eventually lead to outright conflict. But this plan could explain both Rove's comments and the ship movements (they would be needed to mine Iranian harbors), and would have some significant political and tactical advantages. It puts off the necessity of an outright attack, and the risk of being seen to do it for political reasons, until after the elections. It can be achieved with relatively limited military assets, many of which are already in the Persian Gulf. And it would virtually guarantee that Iran would be sufficiently provoked to provide the casus belli Bush needs to justify a war down the road, if he wants one.
Keep your eyes open...
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